


Mirror, Mirror

by AngelOfBooze



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Casual Ableism, DJ!Clint, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Gen, Multi, Nurse!Sam, Police Man!Steve, Police Woman!Natasha, Queerplatonic Relationships, aroace!Clint Barton, aroace!Natasha Romanoff, hospital au, nurse!Darcy Lewis, nurse!Thor, queerplatonic clintasha - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:58:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfBooze/pseuds/AngelOfBooze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tags Will Be Updated As Fic Updates</p>
<p>Clint lost his hearing and Natasha got shot.<br/>They share an unsuit bathroom in the hospital and Clint is fed up with Natasha’s hair in the drain. He leaves a snarky note on the mirror telling her to knock it off (Yes, you have nice hair. I'd prefer you kept it on your head and out of the drain) He signs with an arrow under his name. Nat replies. Friendship and pudding cups ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I'm so sorry I haven't updated in a while! But I'm back and have a multi-chapter queerplatonic clintasha fic to make up for my lengthy absence.  
> I got the idea to write this when I visited my mum in hospital and she had an unsuit bathroom that she shared with the person in the next room.  
> I don't know much about hospitals, deafness, being shot or the American health system. If you see any glaring mistakes point them out to me!  
> I hope you enjoy this!  
> Thank-you to my awesome beta, Adam!

Clint can’t remember much. A loud ass explosion. A ringing in his ears, muffled screams. Sharp, hungry flames licking in his peripheral vision. Clint remembers his head hitting the pavement, a bloom of pain zigzagging its way into his head, then darkness. A cool, welcoming darkness that stopped the pain seeping into his bones. Clint can feel that pain coming back full force now. A throb is starting at his temple, shooting into his brain, reacting to the bright white of the room he’s in. Clint closes his eyes against the pain. He wants to bring his hand up to massage at his temple, but he thinks that that probably won’t be wise.

Clint can feel a constricting pressure around his skull, pushing into it. He knows that it’s not coming from his skull or his brain. It’s an external pressure. Clint opens his eyes again, flinching at the brightness. He is in a haze, floating though space. He is aware that he is in a hospital room, though it doesn’t really register. He moves his arm, flinching at the pinch of an IV in his arm. He wants to speak, he really does, but his tongue feels like a led weight in his mouth. His eyes swivel from one side to another. He knows that he should somehow alert someone to the fact that he is awake. Awake and confused. Clint gropes around for the little ‘call’ button that he thinks should be somewhere in his reach. He looks to his right. Nothing. He doesn’t think he has the strength to look to his left. He’s right. Clint’s eyes slip closed.

Clint lifts his head and groans. Pain is dancing around in his skull like fireflies. He jumps when a nurse comes up to his side. How did he not hear him? Come to think of it, Clint can’t hear much at all. Maybe it has something to do with the thing wrapped around his head? Maybe it has something to do with the explosion… _the explosion._ Oh no.

Clint drags one hand up to his head. A bandage is wrapped around his head. “What happened?” he asks. He can feel his voice dragging itself up his throat and into the sterile air of the hospital, but he can’t hear it. This is bad. So bad. Clint looks over to the nurse, who has a calm, placid expression on his face. Clint can feel panic rising in his gut and the man is just standing there. He looks so calm. Obviously he is trying to not freak Clint out, but his stoic face is turning the panic in Clint’s gut to anger. How can he be so calm? Clint’s eardrums were blown out for Christ’s sake! The nurses stare is fuelling Clint’s anger. “Can you hear me?” Clint can feel himself saying, “Because I sure as hell can’t”. Clint doesn’t know how loud he intends for his voice to come out, but by the way the nurse, Sam his name tag states, flinches, he has raised his voice pretty loudly.

Clint feels like he’s going to be sick. He begins to retch. Sam, who appears to have anticipated this, pulls a bucket out of seemingly nowhere and rubs gentle circles on Clint’s back as he dry heaves a great heaping of nothing into the bucket. The world is swimming in front of his eyes. He can practically see his whole world crashing around him. He was a DJ for crying out loud! How in hell was he supposed to do his job if he couldn’t hear the god damn music?

Clint can remember the pulsing of the music and of the hordes of young people that would pour into the club he worked at like clockwork. They would come for the party and keep coming back for the music a few regulars would tell Clint as they patted him on the back in a drunk stupor and stumbled towards a taxi.

When Clint wakes up he can feel the anger in his stomach has simmered down to something akin to a sort of fearfulness. The nurse has left, but has left the bucket in Clint’s reach, just in case Clint assumes. Clint doesn’t know the first thing about deafness, so he’s unsure if his ears could ‘fix’ themselves. The next few days were going to be filled with nothing but radio silence. Perhaps his whole life would be filled with radio silence.

 

* * *

Natasha wakes with a start when a voice pierces through her dreams, slashing though the fog that has enveloped her mind. A piercing pain shoots through her abdomen as snippets from the past day begin to leak into her mind, though the drug induced haze that is wrapped tightly around her mind.

Natasha remembers pulling a gun on an armed shop lifter, her partner, Steve coming around behind him. She remembers trying to talk with him, talk him out of doing something… her brain is having trouble conjuring up specifics. She remembers a bolt of pain gripping her stomach as the robber discharged a bullet into her. She can remember it ripping though her flesh. She can remember Steve pulling out his taser and using it on the robber. Natasha remembers slumping to the linoleum floor in a pool of her own blood and everything fading to black.

Natasha sits bolt right up, groaning as another sharp bolt of pain blasts through her. This causes a figure beside her to move. She gives a start when she realizes its Steve. How he convinced the hospital staff to let him into her room while he was still covered in blood, she couldn’t know. Next to Steve sits Bucky, who looks startled by the fact that Natasha is awake. Bucky is worrying a piece of his shirt between the fingers of his right hand and looking at Natasha intently. Steve is staring at her with stars in his eyes. He looks sleepy and dazed, but happy. Natasha gives a smile, which she is pretty certain comes out as more of a grimace. Natasha lowers herself back down onto the pillows gingerly before opening her mouth to speak.

“Hey” she says.

Steve grins, “Hey”. His voice comes out husky and dry, not unlike her own.

“Water?” she asks. Bucky, who looks more alert than Steve pushes himself up off of the uncomfortable looking hospital chair. He reaches out with his right hand and presses the ‘call’ button that’s built into the wall just behind Natasha’s head. Bucky sits on the bed beside Natasha and rubs her legs through the covers. Natasha notes that Bucky isn’t wearing his prosthetic arm. He usually wears his prosthetic to work. He was working the same day as Natasha and Steve. Natasha looked between the two men. “How long was I out?” she manages to croak. Steve looks down at his hands, “Forty two hours” he says. Natasha’s brain is too foggy to do the math, though she thinks that it’s sometime in the early hours of Sunday.

Natasha shuffles her legs under the scratchy, starched hospital sheet as the doctor enters the room. He sits down in a chair beside her bed and looks between her, Steve and Bucky. His eyes linger on Bucky, who is still rubbing Natasha’s leg. The doctor turns back towards Natasha “I’m Doctor Banner” he says by way of introduction. Natasha nods her head. “What’s up, doc?” she asks, still high on the medication pumping though her veins. Doctor Banner looks vaguely amused before turning back to the folder in his hand.

“Ms Romanoff, I’ll have to ask your friend to leave” Doctor Banner says, nodding his head in Steve’s direction. “I would like to talk to you and your boyfriend alone.” Natasha is about to correct Doctor Banner when Steve pipes up.

“Uh, actually, he’s my boyfriend” Steve says, leaning enough towards Bucky that he can put a possessive hand on his thigh. Doctor Banner nods at this.

“Then I’ll have to ask you both to leave” the doctor corrects. Natasha clenches her hands into fists, her blunt fingernails biting into the soft flesh of her palms. Steve looks at her for direction, waiting to see if she would be okay with him and Bucky leaving. Natasha nods her head.

Natasha watches Steve shuffle out the door on her right, a hand placed possessively on Bucky’s lower back. She only just holds back a snort at how strangely Steve is acting. Natasha realizes then that Steve probably thought he was going to lose her. Sure, Steve has other friends, and Bucky, but Natasha was still one of the closest things he has to family. She begins to regret sending the two men out.

She is pulled from her thoughts when Banner clears his throat. Natasha swings her head around, regretting the movement instantly when the world begins to spin around her. Doctor Banner looks like he is enjoying seeing Natasha so out of it. “You see this type of thing often?” she bites out, still not used to how heavy and slow her tongue feels.

Banner goes on to say about how the bullet ripped straight through her abdomen (“You were very lucky there” “Don’t feel very lucky”) Banner tells her that she will have to stay in hospital for a few weeks to monitor her health. Natasha sighs and nods along. It’s going to be a long few weeks filled with nothing but rhythmically beeping machines and the occasional visit from Steve and Bucky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if these two would even be in the same ward, but for the sake of this story, they are.   
> Also, I promise that we will get some clintasha interaction next chapter uwu  
> Thank-you so much to my wonderful beta, Adam <3

Clint rolls over in the (presumably) squeaking bed, his hearing is shot. He only has about twenty percent left in his right ear, the one furthest away from the blast. He is tired all the time. He hadn’t seen the point in getting out of bed for the first two days he was in the hospital. He didn’t know why the nurses that came around didn’t force him out of bed for a shower. Eventually one thing forced him to hobble to his feet. The need to empty his bladder. He was most certainly _not_ going to ask for a bed pan if he didn’t have to.

He slides himself out of bed, they took his IV out the moment he was able to keep water down. He pads gingerly over to the starch white bathroom door. ‘ONLY patients are allowed to use this rest room’ a laminated shock of bright pink paper declares. Clint shrugs, he’d refused all guests that had tried to come in. Clint pushes open the door He notices a button just above the handle. He presses it and a light just next to the button flashes from green to red. “Nifty” Clint whispers to himself, even though he can’t hear what he said.

The moment the door closes fully behind him, Clint takes in the bathroom. Clean, white and formal. There’s a thing that looks like a plastic jelly fish over the nozzle of the sink. Clint guesses it’s to filter the water of any harmful bacteria. The moment Clint sees the toilet he rushes over. He does his business sitting down, not trusting his legs to hold him (or his aim to be steady)

It was remarkably _normal_ going to the toilet, apart from, you know, not being able to hear a single thing. Clint remembers he went deaf for a month back when he was a kid, he had sat to close to a fire cracker that had gone off too early. Apart from the deafness he had received some minor burns. The doctors hadn’t known how long his hearing loss would last and had suggested his parents start teaching him ASL. Clint hadn’t wanted to do the courses, but, obviously, he wanted to know what was going on in everyday life. His parents were preparing to get him hearing aids when his hearing started coming back. The doctors had told Clint (more like wrote it down) that because of the damage caused to his ears when he was younger, they wouldn’t be likely to heal to their full potential. It looks, to Clint at least, that in his childhood, fate was only giving him a taste of what was to come.

Clint shuffles over to the sink, his bladder sitting more comfortably. He turns on the tap and sighs happily at the feeling of water against his skin. He feels clean for the first time since the, uh, sponge bath he was given his first night at the hospital. Clint debates with himself for a moment before giving into temptation and deciding to take a shower. Clint begins to undress from his clothes, thankfully he was allowed to have someone collect some from his apartment. He has his pants half way down his thighs when he realizes the second door. Clint’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. He hadn’t realized that he was _sharing_ the bathroom with anyone.

Clint shivers. This is the most embarrassing moment of his life. How long had he been in the bathroom just touching things? The person next door could have been knocking on the door for ages and Clint wouldn’t have realized. The second thing Clint realizes is that there was one shower. One shower for two people. He hopes to god that the person next door is clean when it comes to their hair.

Clint peaks his head around the shower curtain. There’s a chair in the shower cubical. Clint wonders vaguely if the chair is always there or if he’s bunking with someone who can’t stand for one reason or another. His eyes slide down the cubicles walls and over the floor. It’s all pretty clean until he gets to the drain. Clint cringes at the mass of dark, red hair making its home in the drain. He knew that the bathroom got cleaned every day or so. That means that the unappealing lump of hair was all from _one_ wash. Clint felt sick. How the hell could one man have that much hair? Unless…

Clint stumbles away from the shower. Was he even _allowed_ to share a bathroom with a girl? What if he perved on her or something? Not that he would or anything but _if_ he was that kind of guy. Clint decides hurriedly that his best course of action is to get back into his room and to never, _ever,_ come back into the bathroom. Ever.

Clint has stumbled back into his bed and under the covers by the next time a nurse comes into check on him. It’s Sam, again. So far, the nurses time schedules don’t make a lick of sense to Clint and he isn’t about to try to figure them out. Sam waves a hello. Clint rolls his eyes, he remembers telling Sam to knock it off with the sign language. It appears that he has changed his tactic to universal signs of communication.

 

* * *

Natasha is pulled out of her deep sleep far too early, in her opinion. The nurses had let her sleep for the next twenty four hours after Banners visit. They had shuffled around, changing IV bags and checking her vitals for a few minutes before letting her doze off.

Now she was being woken up by the golden sunlight of the early morning filtering through her window and straight into her eyes. Oh, and breakfast was being delivered by a talkative nurse. Natasha cracked open her eyes, cursing all morning people and, it seemed, the shared trait of being happy as hell. That is, until, she sees the food. There is a pudding cup. One cup of rich, chocolaty pudding, and it was all _hers_. Natasha’s stomach lets out a growl at the sight of the food. The nurse turns around and makes a chirpy comment about ‘how hungry’ Natasha must be after not eating for the last forty eight hours.

That certainly wakes Natasha up. She hasn’t eaten since Friday morning. Natasha groans as she pushes herself up onto her elbows. Pain shoots as far down as her knee and as far as her navel. “Where did I get shot again?” she gasps. The nurse turns and faces Natasha. The name ‘Darcy’ pokes out through the bright, overzealous stickers that have been piled onto her name tag. “The bullet just grazed your hip bone.”

How anyone could say that sentence without their smile faltering is beyond Natasha. She grimaces at Darcy before asking for the remote control for the bed. Darcy obliges and watches Natasha like a hawk as she pushes the button until she is in a seating position. Natasha watches Darcy leave before she goes straight for the pudding. Natasha makes a noise of pure bliss around her mouthful of pudding. She prays that the person in the next room is still asleep and can’t hear her.

A small chuckle comes from the door way.

Natasha’s face slackens, her second spoonful halfway to her lips. She freezes like a deer in the headlights of a fuel tanker. Bucky, the bastard, comes around the doorway, iphone in hand. “You piece of sh-“

“Anndd that’s a wrap” Bucky interrupts, shoving the phone down and into the depths of his pocket. Natasha scowls at him. She is just about to ask just why the hell Bucky is here when he plops down into the chair to her right and simply says “Visiting hours”

Natasha moves her mouth in a way that vaguely resembles a fish before looking at the clock. She scolds herself. It’s just ten am. And here she was thinking that she had been woken up at the crack of dawn. “How long was I out?” she asks. Bucky shrugs.

“‘Bout five… six hours?” he estimates.

“That wasn’t long” Natasha says, she was almost certain she had slept longer than that. Her eyes slide around the room. “Where’s Steve?” she asks, expecting him to jump from around the corner any second now. Bucky rolls his shoulders.

“He left around two hours after you drifted off. They wouldn’t let him stay in the state he was in” Bucky replies. Natasha can’t work out if Bucky is referring to the state of Steve’s clothes or his psych.Natasha thinks she’s better off not asking.

Natasha ends up choosing the easy way out. “Well, Barnes, I’m off to take a shower. And if you show that video to anyone, you will lose the other arm.” Bucky frowns, evidently not shaken by Natasha’s empty threat.

“Have fun” Bucky says to her “But not _too_ much fun”. Natasha sighs and throws her spoon at him.

“I’m just gonna be washing my hair, don’t get you boxers in a twist. Now be a dear and help me into the chair” She says with a tight grin. She is _really not_ looking forward to this, especially since she will probably be needing a sponge bath. Natasha shivers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this <3  
> Please message me if you notice any inaccurate mistakes!  
> I love and appreciate all of your comments and your kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Another chapter. Thank-you for the kudos and comments, they mean a lot to me! Your comments and kudos are what actually makes me write so quickly, so keep them coming! I squeal with delight every time I get an e-mail notifying me of them!  
> Thanks again to Adam for betaing!

Sam wakes Clint up at six o’clock the next day. Clint can’t begin to voice his annoyance with the hospitals unholy time schedules. When he complains to Sam and asks why exactly the patients have to be up so early, the nurse mouths ‘rule’ over exaggeratedly accompanying it with a sloppy hand sign. Clint frowns. “I thought I told you to stop doing that” he says. Sam gives him, wait, is that a..? Yes, that was most certainly a bitchface. “Thanks Mr _Winchester_ ” Clint says, injecting some more venom than necessary into his words. Sam rolls his eyes and continues doing… whatever it is that nurses do when they’re shuffling around ones hospital room.

Clint pushes himself out of the bed, deciding that he may as well get to the toilet before the red head in the room next to him. He stumble slightly on the cool floor. His head is spinning by the time he gets to the bathroom door. He feels nauseous. Clint feels around for the handle and when he reaches it, he focuses on the light to try to keep the world from spinning around him. Clint frowns and rubs the back of his neck as he walks through the door. This is getting off to be a horrible day.

Clint doesn’t know why he does it. He just knows that he won’t be able to _sleep_ with his question unanswered. He steps towards the shower curtain, his breath is the only thing disturbing the pale white fabric that’s hanging limply from the silver railing. He thinks absently that this is the part where a beautiful girl with flowing red hair and a harpies scream would pull back the curtain and throw a bar of soap at him.

Of course real life is far more-dull than the movies and all that happens is that Clint sees a hairball clinging desperately to the shower drain. He makes a face and backs slowly out of the cubical before turning abruptly away from the disgusting sight that is _shower drain hair, red edition_. Clint wonders why no one has ever made a horror movie about shower drain hair. He makes a face and hightails it back into his beautiful, _hairless_ room.

Sam is still waiting in Clint’s room. He’s just sitting on the side of Clint’s bed. _Waiting_ for him. “That’s not creepy at all” Clint says as he sits on the chair to the right of his bed, in front of Sam. Sam shrugs before scribbling something onto a piece of paper attached to a clip board. “Y’know, my parents tried that the first time I went deaf.” Clint says, watching Sam scribbling away, “They didn’t count on the fact that I had dyslexia.” Sam stops his frantic writing and looks at Clint with a quizzical look on his face. Clint raises his hands in surrender. “You got me. My parents never cared enough to try that”

Sam’s eyebrows knit together in concern before he lets out what Clint assumes is a sigh. Sam holds up the clip board. Clint is quite taken aback by what it says. He reads over it a few times to make sure he read it right. Clint lets the air escape his lungs in what he hopes is an audible and dejected sigh. ‘Fine’ he signs to Sam, who nods approvingly. Clint, who would later be asked what the piece of paper had had written on it would recall, “Blah, blah, you need to communicate blah, blah, emotional sentence, blah blah, communication goes both ways”, He would be ,of course, using his well-developed sarcasm to cover some emotion bubbling too close to the surface for comfort.

Sam nods approvingly before getting up off of the bed and patting Clint on the shoulder in what Clint suspects was Sam’s way of showing that he was, in fact, ‘manly’, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Clint notices that Sam has left the clipboard on the bed along with pencil. Perhaps in an attempt at ‘subtly’ encouraging Clint’s new found ‘talkativeness’. It was as if Sam thought Clint was only just learning how to talk. Clint rolls his eyes at his nurse. Sure, Sam is just trying to help, but it comes across as babying.

Clint picks up the note pad. Suddenly an idea worms its way into Clint’s consciousness. An idea so ingenious it has never been tried before (probably) Clint gathers up the supplies he will need for his fantastic idea, now known as Operation Hairless Drains. Clint carries Operation Hairless Drains over to the little tray table on the other side of the bed and sets it down. He scribbles down a few drafts of what he wants to say to the woman next door. He eventually settles with _‘_ _Yes, you have nice hair. I'd prefer you kept it on your head and out of the drain’._ Clint grins at his note before writing his name (under lined with an arrow) on the bottom of his note. ‘Perfect’ he signs to himself.

 

* * *

Either Steve or Bucky come to visit Natasha almost every day. Her room is always filled with rambunctious laughter and heated debates. Today, though, both Steve and Bucky are working during visiting hours. Bucky texts her occasionally, although he is more preoccupied with, well, his _job_. Natasha sighs and rolls over in her bed. She is bored out of her mind. She is debating with herself on whether she should try making small talk with one of the nurses who comes in to check her dressings every few hours.

Natasha can feel her bladder protesting when she moves. _Yes_ she need to go to the toilet but _no_ she refuses to ask for help hobbling all of the ten meters or so it takes to get to the toilet. It’s only the door that gives her trouble, anyway. Natasha groans in self-pity before deciding being uncomfortable for what could be _hours_ is nothing to being in an amount of pain for three or so minuets. Natasha readies herself for what is to come.

Natasha grunts in pain as she makes her way over to the white door. Just because her hip bone was only grazed by the bullet doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to swear at the pain prickling its way up and down her leg and abdomen. Natasha stops for a breather when she gets to the door that leads to the bathroom she shares with her neighbour. Natasha was concerned at first, mainly about the creepiness of her ‘bathroom buddy’ (Bucky had insisted she call them _something_ ) Steve and Bucky had quickly put her fears to rest when they pointed out (with great bias) Natasha’s ability to best almost all the men she had met in a fight.

Natasha pushes open the heavy door and presses the button, watching carefully and checking that it was locked before shutting it behind her. She limps past the basin and into the tight corner where the toilet is situated. She doesn’t regret asking Steve and Bucky to bring her the finest sweatpants he could find in her apartment. Of course Bucky had insisted on buying her a few more sweat pants because he didn’t know how long Natasha would be in the hospital, or how often she would be able to wash her pants.

Natasha gives a slight jump when she realizes that there’s a note on the counter. She hadn’t thought that her ‘bathroom buddy’ would try to _communicate with her_. Natasha tells herself to shut up. She’s treating the person in the other room like some sort of alien. She reads through the note and rethinks her previous thoughts on her ‘bathroom buddy’, Clint. He had complemented her hair. Her hair that had been in the shower drain. Natasha wonders how long Clint has to have been in the hospital to be so desperate for human interaction that he started writing to her about, of all things, shower drain hair.

Natasha picks up the note from Clint and transports it into her room. She sits down in one of the stiff seats that remind her of cardboard. Natasha doesn’t have any pens or pencils to write with, so she decides to wait until Steve comes to visit her, hopefully with the perpetual pencil that is tucked into one of the many pockets of his cargo pants.

Steve and Bucky come to visit Natasha approximately five(!) hours after she found the note from ‘Clint’. Natasha is beginning to wonder if the men have a life outside of work and visiting her. She doubts it very much. She feels the need to tell them to adopt a dog. Steve is wearing, thankfully, his gross cargo pants that Natasha has been trying to get him to throw out for years, but to no avail.

She chums up to her friend the second he sets foot in her room. “Steve, honey” she singsongs, “Have I ever told you how much I _love_ your pants?” Steve looks down at himself before lifting his head, an eyebrow raised in cautious scepticism. “Natalia, you have been trying to get me to throw these out since the moment you saw them” He says a hint of doubtfulness in his voice. Bucky is lingering by his elbow, unsure of if his should proceed into the room or if he should be backing out of it as slowly as possible.

Natasha makes a dismissive gesture with her hand before beckoning her concerned friends in. Steve takes a seat in one of the chairs to her right, Bucky perching himself on the left arm of it. Natasha smiles widely, showing off too much teeth to be friendly, “So, how’ve my two favourite boys been?” She asks. Bucky, who still hasn’t said anything, reaches out a tentative hand and places it gently on Natasha’s forehead. He leans well into Steve’s personal space more than would be acceptable, even by their standards before stage whispering, “She doesn’t have a fever, I vote we get out before it’s too late”

Natasha swats Bucky’s hand away. “I’m just trying to play him, no need to be alarmed.” Steve puts on a looks of scandalized horror while Bucky gasps and clutches a hand to his chest. “Our Natalia, who would’ve thought?” Natasha pulls a face at her given name as Steve mimics fainting into Bucky’s lap. Bucky wobbles on the arm of the chair before clutching desperately at Steve’s T-shirt to keep himself from toppling onto the floor.

Natasha huffs out a laugh as the two men grapple for a hand hold and a way to keep themselves from their imminent demise before straightening out her face and demanding, very seriously, that Steve give her his best, purebred 2B pencil, as it’s an emergency. Steve straightens his back instantly and asks, “Is it to sign a peace treaty with the Klingons, Captain?” Natasha nods and holds out her hand, her body already beginning to shake with unabashed laughter.

As Steve digs around in his backpack for a pencil, and Bucky does an in character monologue for Captain Kirk, Natasha wonders if her sense of humour has been warped by the fact that she has been cooped up in a hospital for the last week with no one but nurses and trekkies for company. Natasha takes the pencil from Steve’s out stretched hand with as much dignity as she can muster before Bucky ruins the moment by making innuendo.

When Steve and Bucky leave about two hours later, Natasha can finally get to writing a note to ‘Clint’. She doesn’t know why she feels the need to write back, she just does. Her pencil skates across the paper with no more than a soft, scratching noise. The paper is a sturdy, solid printer paper that Natasha has used many times when printing her reports on the criminals she and her partners have apprehended. She thinks that she will never get used to the sharp feeling of it under her hand. Natasha signs her name with a spiders web because why the hell not?

‘Clint. I’ll stop getting hair in the drain if you work on your aim. Natasha’. It rhymes. It wasn’t supposed to rhyme. Natasha groans and slumps her head into her hands before deciding to go with what she’s got. She slips the paper onto the counter the next time she goes to use the bathroom, dusting off her hands like she had just completed a particularly dirty hit job. Why the hell did she just think that? The sooner she’s out of the hospital the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank-you for reading!  
> I appreciate all of your comments and kudos, they're what show me that people are actually interested in my story!  
> I've tried to do more research on what happens when one has their ear damaged, and have found quite a few symptoms that I want to include in chapter 4. Do you think sudden symptoms would be too strange after having Clint be perfectly fine for the past three chapters?  
> Poor Clint! He has no one to talk to. Alas! You guys might be wondering why Kate and Barney aren’t in here and the answer is that I haven’t actually read the comics! Don’t fret, because I should be able to start reading them come Monday, so those two might be making an appearance if the story hasn’t progressed to the point where they can’t.  
> Also, who else wants Tony and Pepper to make an appearance? I sure do! Do you have any other characters you would love to see? Please tell me so that I can work them into the story. I don’t know how many chapters this fic will go for, so this offer won’t last!  
> If you want to pop by for a chat, I'm angelofbooze on tumblr.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sponge Bob Narrator voice* ONE ETERNITY LATER
> 
> I am so, so sorry this took forever to upload! I've been really over run with assignments because it's the end of the school year for us Aussies :/  
> I hope you enjoy this! I know it's not much. Though I hope to have an update to my autie!Simon series soon... ANd I have a few oneshots to finish as well!

Clint wakes up to a major headache that only increases in size when he opens his eyes to the glaring white light that streams in through the open window that has no blinds. His balance had been off for the past few days but now things are really starting to get serious. He feels like if he moves any more than he already has he’ll throw up. His stomach does cartwheels as he tries to monitor his breathing. This was not how he wanted to start the day. This probably means he’ll be stuck in this godforsaken place for a few more godforsaken days that will be filled with so many god damn check-ups he’ll probably lose his mind.

Clint is sitting on the edge of his bed, head braced between his legs, when his peppy nurse from Norway comes practically prancing in. Clint looks up wearily. The nurse has his long ass hair tied behind him in an effective, though thoroughly unflattering, pony tail. The nurse smiles brightly at Clint before signing a greeting. Clint sighs. Sam has apparently been teaching all of Clint’s nurses sign language because every time one comes to check on him a sloppy sign is thrown in his general direction. The nurses usually sign a ‘hello’ or a ‘good morning’, Sam is really the only nurse who knows enough ASL to be any good in conversation. Clint still doesn’t know just why Sam knows ASL. He figures he’ll have to ask about it on one of these endless, endless days.

Thor sometimes gets adventurous and tries to hold deep, meaningful conversations (Though Clint sometimes makes out the word ‘poptart’, which concerns him) in very grammatically incorrect ASL. Clint sighs and goes along with it. He really can’t be bothered to try to correct the nurse. Thor probably already has at least six European languages and all the rules that come with them swimming around in his head.

Speaking of nurses, Clint doesn’t know how or when he learned the nurses time table, he just has (probably though mind control or subliminal messaging) Now he can almost predict what nurse will come into his room at any given time. He usually goes to the toilet while the nurses are in the room, partially because he doesn’t want to talk with them and partially because he has a fear that he’ll slip on the linoleum floor and not be able to hear anyone come into his room so that he could call for help. Clint doesn’t know where the fear came from nor does he want to go dredging through the depths of his mind to find out. He was always afraid of dying naked, so maybe that’s part of it.

Clint crawls out of bed, lurching to the side as the floor pulsates beneath his feet. He reaches for a pencil, just in case the person (woman) in the other room has replied to his message. Despite the throbbing in his head he is glad that the shower drain will soon be red-hair-free. Clint groans as he shuffles along, waving off Thor’s attempts at being helpful, which pushed him more off balance than before. Clint eventually makes it to the bathroom door. He feels like this is the only movement he has been doing for the past million years. He pushes open the door, like always. He almost slips on the floor, not like always, and makes his way over to the toilet. Also not like always is the note he missed coming in. It’s in a neat block hand writing that puts his hand writing, which he thought was quite good, to shame.

His mouth is quirked up at the corners in amusement when he reads the note ‘Natasha’ has left him. He feels like her; with her assumed love for rhymes, and he, with his known love for rhymes and word play, will get along quite nicely. Clint flips the page over, feeling too unwell and too unwilling to go back into the next room to get the note pad on the bedside table. ‘I’m an archer in my free time, I have brilliant aim!’ he writes. He knows it’s a lie. Since what he now refers to as The Accident he’s been off balance and out of focus. Just not nearly as much as today.

Clint leaves the note and hobbles back out to his bedroom and right into Thor’s chest. He lets out a muffles shriek of fright when he cruses straight into the taller man’s chest. His hands come up to protect his face. “What the hell!” He snaps at Thor, who looks sheepish as he backs up. “Sorry” Thor says, exaggerating his mouths movements to make it easier for Clint to read, or so Clint assumes. The exaggerated movements just make things more complicated. ‘I wanted to see if you were alright. You had been in there a long time’ Thor signs. Clint looks at the digital watch fastened around his wrist. He had been in the bathroom about five minutes. Five minutes?? How the hell had he lost track of that much time? Thor sees the look of distress on his face and so starts herding Clint towards the bed. Clint lets out a groan of protest but other than that he’s too tired to complain as he gets ferried back into bed; apart from the slight “Aw, pencil” he mutters when he drops it on the ground and watches at it rolls out of sight.

* * *

 

Natasha only realizes she can actually leave her room and elope through the hospital wards one week after her admission. Her realization comes in the form of a short as hell heart patient and his BAMF wife/ CEO. She hears them squabbling endlessly in the corridor, apparently ‘Tony’ has forgotten where his room is. Natasha finds this understandable because the way Steve and Bucky descried the hospital wards it was a labyrinth of cranky nurses and coughing elderly people. Great.

Like the white person in a horror person, Natasha peeks her head around the doorway of her room, looking in the direction of the voices. She puts one foot after the other, careful not to trip and fall over her usually well-coordinated and elegant feet that feel far more like an elephants thanks to their disuse. She can feel the rub of the strange carpeting that stretches down the hall way and rounds the corner out of sight. Who the hell carpets a hospital hall way anyway? At least they used low quality carpeting.

Natasha stops abruptly in the middle of the hallway, frozen in place when she realizes that all she’s wearing is grey tracksuit pants and a black singlet. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun that tickles the nape of her neck. The woman she was planning on approaching is wearing a smart pants suit. Hair done up in a ponytail. Not a wisp out of place. Natasha cringes slightly and begins to register that she has made terrible mistake when the woman turns towards her.

The woman and Natasha make eye contact. There’s no getting out of talking to her now. The woman strides towards her with an air of purposefulness to her, making Natasha stand a little straighter, despite the twinge of pain that snakes around her hip. Natasha smiles guiltily at the woman, regretting her decision to go exploring.

“Pepper Potts” the woman introduces herself as. Natasha nods her head, the name sounds vaguely familiar to her, but she chooses not to mention it. The man Pepper was arguing with walks briskly down the hall towards the two women, he looks impatient and his face is flushed slightly. Natasha squints, he is definitely familiar.

He glides in between Pepper and Natasha. “Ladies, I’m sure you’re having a nice chat about shoes… or something, but my heart’s about to give out so the sooner you stop the redundant chatter the better.”

Natasha would recognise that voice anywhere, but it’s the heart trouble that gives it away. Tony Stark, she should have known. Natasha declared the man her arch nemesis the first time she heard him talk. Steve had been practically begging her to change over to an interview with him one night when they were on a stakeout. He talked mainly about the weapons he was engineering, which Natasha knew Steve wasn’t interested in, but he had just started shifting to, of all things, prosthetics and medical engineering, when Steve became interested.

Natasha liked the work that Tony was doing, and Steve obviously did (Though Natasha thought that the minor crush that Steve was harbouring helped) but she couldn’t stand his flirty mannerisms and dismissive tone. Steve had mentioned offhandedly, though with a lot of concern in his voice, that Anthony Stark, son of the infamous Howard Stark, had been admitted to hospital on and off for a faulty valve in his heart.

“I was just asking where your room was,” Pepper says, “You would have known that if you cared to listen” Tony simply rolls his eyes and then glares at Natasha for details.

“I- uh… This is actually the first time I’ve been out of my room since I was admitted” Natasha says to and increasingly annoyed looking Stark. Pepper nods her head. She is just about to open her mouth to say something, probably a ‘good-bye’ or a ‘thank-you’ when Tony interrupts.

“You’re the one who was shot,” He says, appearing to have lost all concept of socially acceptable behaviour, “They interviewed a friend of yours. What does he think of my work?” Tony is obviously one to get straight to the point. Natasha scrunches her face up. When was she, or any of her friends on the news? Why were they on the news? Then it clicks.

Tony was referring to Bucky, apparently just assuming he had heard of his work. Which he had, but that just wasn’t the point. Natasha looks at Tony, then to Pepper, having trouble formulating a response. “He…uh.. He thinks it’s quite handy?” She offers, getting a huff of laughter out of Tony in return for her pun. “His boyfriend is more interested in the mechanics though” She adds, trying to save her reputation from these strangers.

“The blond one, right?” Tony asks. Natasha nods mutely. How much had been on the news. She wanted to find all articles and burn them. Natasha scrubs a hand back through her hair. “They visit almost every day” She says. Why did she say that. She basically invited her self-declared arch nemesis into her room. Her only spot of merge privacy in the whole hospital would now be tarnished by him.

Steve had once asked her why she was so against Tony Stark. She couldn’t give him an answer. He was just one of those people, those many, many people that she hated at first sight. Only this was different. She couldn’t pin point why exactly she hated him. Maybe the flaw was so big it tarnished all of him so that she couldn’t see the good or see the individual flaws. Or maybe it was so small that she couldn’t even begin to find where it is. Whatever the flaw was, though, Natasha just couldn’t see past it.

Tony makes a noise of approval before pushing past Natasha and into her room. Natasha can feel a look of utter confusion blooming across her face and Pepper looks apologetic. “Tony, get out of there” Pepper snaps at her husband. The sharpness of Peppers tone pulls Natasha back into the present. She frowns before half jogging back into her room. She realizes that half jogging was a bad idea when pain splits up her side.

“No, no. You can stay here” she says. She can’t believe she’s doing this. But it’s Steve, “But only,” she adds, “If you sign something for my friend”. Tony makes a noise of approval. and Pepper sighs. “You know you’ll never get rid of him now” She whispers to Natasha.

“That how you two got married?” She asks the blonde. Pepper huffs out a laugh.

“Something like that.”

Natasha texts Bucky to bring his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank-you for reading!  
> I love all of your comments and kudos, I don't think I would have finished this chapter without them!  
> Come talk to me at angelofbooze on tumblr!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahah just over 4 months since I updated this. I'm a sad excuse for a writer.   
> I'll hopefully be updating this more frequently(I say that every time, don't I?)  
> I've edited the previous chapters a bit and polished them up, so hopefully I'll get around to updating the soon...

Clint is sitting up in bed, watching the world go on through his hospital window like a silent movie that only he can see. The world outside of his white bed room is filled with colours and smells. The world outside of his body is filled with sound. His face is impassive, just a blank slate. The lines in his forehead are gone but the thoughts in his head are raging on like a storm and Clint feels like a small ship, no, a yacht(and not the expensive kind either) being tossed around on the waves of his emotions.

When he was first told that there was no chance that his hearing would be what it once was, that’s if it even came back, Clint laughed in the doctors face. He was sure it would return and he would get to go back to work. He was sure he would be able to forget that the explosion ever happened.

After the first few days in the hospital, when all he could here was an intrusive ringing day in day out he felt like throwing things. Like pulling his hair out and screaming. Not that he could hear it anyway. He felt like telling the nurses and doctors that they could stick their treatments where the sun don’t shine if they couldn’t get his hearing back.

After a few days of feeling like every little thing would set him off he began asking Kate(via text, he didn’t want anyone seeing him like this) if she could afford to get him a CI. Sure all the tests said that a person had to have it implanted when they were a baby, but come on. He was sure that it would be different for him. He was sure that since he only just lost his ears the CI would work. No matter how much he begged Kate to agree with him she kept telling him the plain and simple truth. His hearing would have to return on its own accord.

Now all Clint could feel were waves of sadness and numbness washing over him. Pushing him down. Making him feel like he couldn’t eat and the silence wouldn’t let him sleep. The numbness was worse than the sadness, in Clint’s opinion. At least when he was sad he knew he was still human. When he was numb he felt broken. Well, more broken than he already was.

Clint can’t fathom how he’s expected to sit in the bed. Just waiting for his ears to heal up enough that the hospital can shove hearing aids at him and send him on his way. It’s like he’s expected to fall back into normal life.

For Clint, normal life is a club that is always thrumming with people. A club that is filled to the brim with music that can be heard down the street. Clint doesn’t see how he’s supposed to return to his job, his life when it was orientated so fully around his hearing. Clint’s mouth turns down at the edges, the small quirk in his expression betraying the battle that is being fought in his head. He tells himself that he could bunk with Kate, she’s rich enough to afford to support him until he can figure out what to do with his life. He tells himself that he could write a book about his experiences and get loaded. He tells himself he can do anything he wants. He doesn’t believe himself.

Clint’s life is going down the drain all the while he’s clinging desperately to it like hair being sucked down a drain. A tear slips down his face and Clint lets out a breath that makes his chest shudder. Sam chooses that moment to walk in on Clint. Sadly for Clint, or perhaps luckily, he can’t tell Sam’s in the room until the nurse is standing almost right beside him.

‘How are you doing’ Sam signs with a raised eyebrow. A question then.

Clint shrugs. ‘Okay’ he signs, his mouth pulling down in the corners slightly. Sam frowns before sitting on the side of his bed.

‘Good okay or Bad okay’. Another quirked eyebrow.

Clint shakes his head.

‘It’s okay to be scared’ Sam looks at him with those huge puppy eyes he has. Clint doesn’t respond and only looks through Sam. Sam taps him on the shoulder to get him to look at him.

‘I can’t go back to work.’ Clint reveals, ‘I was a DJ’

Sam nods before looking out the window. He can probably hear the cars Clint thinks bitterly. Sam bites his lip before looking back to Clint.

‘I don’t know how helpful this is’ he signs unsurely, ‘But Beethoven was deaf. He felt the vibrations of his music’ Sam signs the composers name out, making the conversation painstakingly slow.

Clint shrugs and turns to look back out the window, mulling over what Sam said. ‘Thanks’ he signs, finally. Sam taps Clint on the shoulder, interrupting his thoughts; ‘what do you want Dorian’ Clint signs irritably.

Sam rolls his eyes and gets up to check over Clint’s charts. Clint watches as Sam walks towards the door way, obviously done with Clint for now. Just as he’s almost out the door Sam turns around and sees Clint looking at him. He decides to say one last thing. ‘I’m a nurse, Bambi’.

Clint waits until Sam is out the door and hopefully a few steps down the hall before he lets his resolve break. He lets the beginnings of a smile form on his face. It takes a few minutes before he realizes he’s crying.

* * *

Natasha is sitting in her room. She had told Tony and Pepper that her friends might be a while because they lived a few hours away. At that revelation Tony had merely nodded and told his phone, a male version of Siri, to remind him to come back to Natasha’s room at noon. When a nurse scurried past her door Tony had shot up, far too fast to be good for him by the way Pepper protested, and had hurried after the nurse. Natasha presumed that he would be asking her to show him the way to his room. Natasha hasn’t seen them since.

She’s looking at the piece of paper she had retrieved from the bathroom a few minutes ago. Clint’s scrawling hand writing is smudged slightly suggesting that he’s left handed. The fact that it’s the same piece of paper as before suggests that he was either too unwell, too lazy or simply couldn’t get a hold of some new paper. Natasha makes a mental note to steal the pile of hot pink sticky notes that Bucky usually carries around to remind himself of what take-out places are having a sale or if he remembers anything more from their shared childhood. She’ll put them, along with a pencil, in the bathroom for both her and Clint to use.

She flips the paper over to her side and starts writing up a draft of what she’s going to say. She chews her pencil as she decides on what to say. Since they’ve got the pleasantries out of the way and now know each other by name, she decides to skip straight to the point and scrawls down a note to ask Clint about how he ended up in hospital. She decides to leave her reason for being admitted out of the note because she doesn’t want to inhibit Clint of questions. She puts down a quick bio about herself age(29), job(Lt in the police force) and hometown(New York, but her first language is Russian) to give him some paths to follow.

Natasha finishes her writing in under ten minutes. Her mind is starting to go numb and is begging for stimulation by the time a nurse walks into her room with lunch. Lunch usually comes at about eleven forty five am. It would be considered more of a brunch to most other people, but given that Natasha and presumably, all of the other patients, have breakfast at six thirty, its lunch. Natasha smiles at the nurse pushing the trolley. He’s just lifting her tray off of the trolley when a familiar voice lets out a shout and Steve dashes into Natasha’s room and barrels into her bed. Bucky, who’s walking menacingly behind Steve at a slower pace, just nods in acknowledgement. Steve looks at the slightly stunned nurse and breaths out. “On your left?” he gasps before sitting heavily on the side of Natasha’s bed and flopping back. Natasha slaps Steve on the arm. He’s behaving like a child all the while being in uniform.

Steve doesn’t react and just continues breathing in deeply. Obviously too winded to speak. The nurse raises an eyebrow as his face splits into a gap tooth grin. The nurse reaches out a hand and helps pull Steve into a sitting position. “You’re heavier than you look” he says by way of introduction.

“I had a big breakfast” Steve replies, still panting a little.

The nurse reaches out a hand. “Sam” he says, despite the fact that his pristine name badge says it for him.

“Steve”.

Natasha quirks an eyebrow. “Stop flirting you two” she says. Sam looks quite pleased.

Bucky chooses this moment to intervene. He steps in front of Steve slightly, Natasha notices that the left sleeve of his hoodie isn’t pinned to the shoulder like normal. “Bucky” He says before tilting his head to Steve, “The more level headed in this relationship”. Sam gets the hint and takes a step back. Natasha decided that she had better force her way into the conversation before Bucky scared the nurse for good. “Why were you running?” She asks Steve, leaning forward to rub his back. Steve had asthma when he was a kid. He eventually grew out of it but Natasha is constantly worrying that it will make a reappearance. She guesses the hospital would be the best place for that to happen, but she’s still not happy about it.

“Tony. Stark” Steve gasps. “He’s in the hospital”. Bucky rolls his eyes. Natasha realized early on that if anyone hated Tony Stark more than her it was Bucky. Though he did realize and appreciate, far more than Natasha, what Tony was doing for the medical community. Sam is looking between them now. “How did you-“

“He was walking around in the lobby” Bucky explains, “I could barely get Steve past him without him asking for an autograph.” Bucky says, a small smile blooming on his face. Natasha’s mouth began to pull up at the corners at the boys antics. “Maybe he will have a chance to ask him” She says.

Just at that moment Tony swaggers around the door frame. Pepper is nowhere to be seen. When Tony sees the way Steve is looking at him he winks. “Captain” he says, inclining his head towards the name badge on Steve’s uniform. Steve blushes bright red. Bucky’s mouth is hanging open. Tony sticks out his hand. “Tony Stark” he says. Steve takes his hand reverently and stares for another few seconds before managing to introduce himself.

Bucky places his hand in Tony’s and introduces himself before stepping back and looking at Sam, who’s still standing in the room. “Told you I was more level headed” he says. Sam flashes a smile before placing the tray on Natasha’s bedside table and darting out of the room. Natasha would follow him, if she could, she thinks she’d be able to cut the tension between Bucky and Tony with a knife.

Natasha clears her throat, reminding the three men that she is, in fact, still in the room. “Steve, honey, could I borrow you sticky notes?” she asks. Steve shuffles around in his bag to get them. Tony’s eyes widen a fraction at the colour but he doesn’t say anything. Tony looks at Bucky and his face breaks into a smile. “Nat wanted me to take a look at your arm” he says. Bucky shrugs noncommittally. Natasha cringes at the nickname.

While Bucky is taking off his arm Natasha turns to Steve. “Stark struck?” she asks smiling at her pun, Steve just nods his head, settling a little further into the white bed sheets.

Bucky hands Stark the arm and tells him to be careful with it. Tony, who has taken on a slightly more professional persona just gives a small eye roll. Natasha enjoys watching her boys interact with Stark and just nods along with what Tony’s saying.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!  
> I love and appreciate all of your kudos and comments! I would really love some critic as well.  
> I'm angelofbooze on tumblr if you want to pop over to say 'hi'!


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